February 12, 2006
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MISCONCEPTIONS, MISPERCEPTIONS, MISINFORMATION… AND SOME NEWS
I still haven’t worked myself up sufficiently to adequately respond to the latest Featured_Grownups
“challenge”, to write about Xanga’s terms of use. After having
been so thoroughly misinformed that the topic was “censorship”, and
having responded to a non-existent “discussion” — and initiating a
pair of new discussions, on censorship and vigilantism — I do want to
get a piece of my mind into the TOS fray, and will do so if this
flighty mind of mine cooperates before the thing goes entirely stale
for everyone.
My meandering piece last night, written as intro to Greyfox’s entry about his mother dying, drew this pair of comments:*shakes sleep out of eyes*.. I think that Mistral misunderstood the difference between believe in and know…but that could just be me misunderstanding…heh
I wish I could remember more of my past lives.They are both correct, really. I suppose I did imply the
inference that mistral drew. The idea that a decomposed corpse
will be reanimated seems to me to be not just absurd but
horrifying. I certainly meant that belief is not the same as knowledge.
I so frequently repeat myself and restate things I’ve said before, that
I often just allude to some of them as I did there without further
explanation. Anyone who hasn’t read any of my rants on belief
versus knowledge might not get it.I will say it again: we have no need to believe in anything that we know.
Belief is for the things we don’t know but that we either hope or fear
are true, or which we have heard or read so often that unless we
question, investigate and experiment, they seem to be true. The
less we believe, the better off we are.
Somehow, Greyfox’s series of
phone calls about his mother’s impending death reminded me of
when I got the news that my mother had died.It was a call from the Alaska State Troopers. As long as I have
been in Alaska, and probably since there have been State Troopers here,
they have acted as messengers for “emergency” messages. I suppose
that the particular dispatcher involved determines the definition of
“emergency,” because it was a call from a sympathetic female trooper
that connected me with Angie
after her investigator had found a reference to my living in Alaska in
my mother’s obituary. It was in no way an emergency, but that
woman was so intrigued and inspired by the story of a woman searching
for her birth mother that she bent the rules, connected us, and even
called me back later in the day to find out how it had gone.The call that told me my mother had died was more in line with the
usual type of calls the troopers make. For people who live in
remote areas, they might deliver the message by radio, aircraft,
snowmobile, or boat. When I got home from having worked two weeks
in our food booth at the state fair, there was a note on my door, to
call the troopers for an emergency message. I did, and was told
that my mother had died more than a week before I got the message.They had no information for me on who had made the call to them.
I started trying to call relatives for more information. The
first one I reached was my eldest daughter Dorrie. She said that
she had made that call to the troopers, four days before my mother
died, and told them that she was dying. Knowing about it then
wouldn’t have done any good. I couldn’t have flown to her side
and even if I had it wouldn’t have changed a thing.It took me some time to get closure regarding my mother’s death.
I had a series of dreams in which I was trying to call her but couldn’t
remember her phone number. That may have been about more than her
death, actually. Even when we were in the same room, Mama and I
didn’t really connect most of the time.
NEWS
Did the pipeline dodge the latest bullet? Some years ago, a drunken man shot up the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, caused
some minor damage and a small oil spill, and got in a heap of trouble
over it.Now there’s news of a Wilkes-Barre, PA man, arrested in Idaho late last
year, who allegedly had plans to detonate trucks filled with propane
along our pipeline, along with blowing up a big oil refinery in the
east, another in the west, and the Transcontinental (natural gas)
Pipeline running from the Gulf Coast to the Atlantic Coast.Michael Curtis Williams claims that he is a patriot who was trying to
uncover an al Qaeda cell in the U.S. He was busted in December in
a sting operation initiated after Judge Shannen Rossmiller from Conrad,
MT, scanning a terrorist website, found Williams’s request for funding
to buy the trucks to fullfill his plan. He is being held for
possession of one hand grenade.
———————–
Latest news from the Yukon Quest
has Lance Mackey, Hans Gatt and Hugh Neff, “moving around” after a rest
at the Mile 101 dog drop, between Angel Creek and Central, the first
two checkpoints on the thousand mile sled dog race (not dog sled
race: it’s the first nose over the finish line that wins),
looking as if they’re getting ready for the run up to Eagle
Summit. Weather reports say a snowstorm with high winds is moving
in, expected to hit Eagle Summit before dark today.
———————–
At Felony Flats this morning, my favorite mungo (a dumpster diver, scrounger or salvager), Greyfox, found a dumpster full of primo mongo
(stuff worth keeping that has been thrown away). In an excited
phone call earlier he said he’d gotten a lot of bedding, throw rugs,
and sixty hours of old-time radio on twenty cassette tapes, and was on
his way to back his car up to the dumpster again for another
load. As I have been composing this entry, he left two more
messages on the CallWave, so excited, telling me to call for an update
as soon as it’s convenient. That’s what I’m going to do next,
after I get something to eat.
Comments (6)
I hope he found some great stuff for you!
It was a topic of censorship to begin with… regarding some of us that want to see porn sites shut down… we were bombared with censorhip comments and pointed out we are not trying to censor we are trying to abide by the TOS
i really believe that the body is just gone but the soul lives on. at least, that’s what i’d like to believe.
great post. sorry to hear about greyfox’s mother.
“I will say it again: we have no need to believe in anything that we know. Belief is for the things we don’t know but that we either hope or fear are true, or which we have heard or read so often that unless we question, investigate and experiment, they seem to be true. The less we believe, the better off we are.”
That quote is perfectly brilliant. Mind if I use it? (With credit, of course.)
Xgram–I just posted an update blog.
And I hav a request–I did a reading for myself on the situation, would apreciate your input–here is fine, or privately, whatever you choose.
Signal–amethyst –touching the word “LOVE’. almost jumped off the board.
Carnelian, center. Black tourmaline touched carnelian, bridged Family and Friends, Love, Partnership.
Rose quartz–between Spiritualty and Health, almost touching Health.
Aquamarine–almost touching Hideen Resources, pointing at Spirituality.
i am much more interested in hearing your opinion on TOS, which is of course a completely different subject from censorship.
you were the only one to give me op-ed advice, so i planned on taking it, but it turns out i don’t have to write the piece until next month… i suspect i’ll have something more timely to write about at that point. i did, however, write a poem on the ‘mohammad cartoon’ topic, just up–like it or hate it, you have yourself to thank.